Bury Free Press reporters

Students have made a major step towards a bright future after receiving their A-level results today.

In Bury St Edmunds, County Upper School’s 102 students scored an overall pass rate of 100 per cent and 92 per cent pass rate at A* to C.

King Edward VI School A Level Results''Picture Mark Westley ANL-150813-115129009

Head Vicky Neale said: “Yet again our students and staff have achieved a truly superb set of results at all levels.”

Among those excelling were Great Britain kayaker and Suffolk musician Jen McGaley with 4A*s, Tom Fisher with 3A*s who will study mechanical engineering at Imperial College, London, Suzie Lane with 3A*s who will read read medicine and Roderick Mansel with 3A*’s and one A.

Tom, from Cockfield, who has a year’s work with a London engineering firm through the engineering and development trust, said: “I’ve wanted to do this for a long time and I’m really pleased.”

West Suffolk Young Musician Liliana Luongo received an A* in music and two Bs and will read music at Trinity Laban Conservatoire. She said: “I’m moving on to new things. I’m nervous but very excited.”

Midwifery hopeful Megan Boreham from Brockley received four university rejections but her 3 A*s and an A see her going to the University of East Anglia.

Jack Routledge, 19, from Stowmarket received two As and a B and goes to Leeds to study media. I’m very pleased. All I wanted was to get into uni and I didn’t expect to get what I got. It’s a bonus.”

Dominique Scoles from Great Barton also celebrated higher than expected results. She is also going to Leeds to study film. She said: “You have to put in the effort.”

St Benedict’s Catholic School, in Bury St Edmunds, celebrated its best ever set of A-level results with an overall pass rate from 64 students of 99 per cent and 81 per cent achieving A* to C.

Students form Stowupland High School celebrate their A Level success ANL-150813-131308001

Headteacher Hugh O’Neill said St Benedict’s has been consistently the top A-level school in Suffolk for many years, and is regularly placed in the top five state comprehensive schools nationally.

This year the total points score per student stands at 1173, more than 80 points higher than in 2014, itself the school’s record-breaking year.

He said: “Our outstanding results at A-level reflect the tremendous work put in by students and staff to ensure that all our candidates achieve the best they can.

“As ever, we salute a wonderful group of students who have done superbly. They have also been a wonderful group of young people to inspire and set a leading example to the rest of the school.”

Childhood friends Harry Hogg and Sam Russell from Stowmarket High School collect their A Level results ANL-150813-131256001

Notable success stories include four students achieving 3 A* grades and a number of grade As: Eleanor Cockman, Josh Evans, Liam Gladden and Elspeth Walker, and Josh Bryan, who gained four A*s and two grade As.

Josh Evans said: “I’m blown away by my results. I wasn’t expecting them to be so good.”

Josh, who goes on to Bath to read computer sciences, has been creating software for Addenbrooke’s Hospital to help its computer engineers schedule their work and said: “It’s been really interesting to create something that could be used in a work environment.”

Liam Gladden, from Great Barton, who achieved 3A*s and three As, will study physics at Imperial College London. He is working as a valedation engineer with a blue tooth chip company during his holidays.

Aimee Moore was with mum and dad Caroline and Terry, and goes on to read law at Coventry. She got four Bs and a D. She said: “Waiting for the results was the hardest thing.” Her mum said: “What she has done is fantastic. We’re just so proud of her.”

At King Edward VI School, in Bury, 170 students sat A-levels with an overall pass rate of 98 per cent - the same as last year.

Some of the successful A-level students at Mildenhall College Academy ANL-150813-113956001

Meanwhile, 84 per cent of grades are C or higher - up from 80 per cent last year.

Headteacher Geoff Barton said: “This has been a particularly nail-biting exam season for students because of all the media stories about marking problems and tougher competition for university places.

“But our students have once again done themselves proud – with more than ever gaining high grades and securing themselves places at some of the UK’s top universities.

“I feel really proud of all our students, delighted for their parents, and privileged to work with such a great team of teachers who year by year deliver such stunning results. Congratulations to them all.”

Molly Stacey, 18, of Horringer, has secured her place at Cambridge University to study English after scoring three A*s in politics, religious studies and English literature.

She said: “I’m so relieved and massively surprised. I needed one A* to get in and thought I would scrape it so three is overwhelming.”

Jessica Larwood, 18, of Great Saxham, becomes the first person from her family to go to university after achieving an A* in biology, A in chemistry and A in physics.

She said: “I’m ecstatic - I’m going to Oxford University to study medicine as I would like to be a trauma surgeon.”

Meanwhile, Adam Place, 18, of Bury, will head to Warwick University to study history after gaining an A in maths, A in modern history and B in English literature.

Seventy one pupils at Culford School achieved a 99.5 per cent overall pass rate and 78 per cent scored A* to C.

Headmaster Julian Johnson-Munday said: “We are very pleased with this excvellent set of results which contain many good individual performances. Pupils and teachers can be proud of what they have achieved.”

At Stowmarket High School all students who applied to university got onto their chosen courses with A*-C performance up on last year to 83 percent.

Childhood friends Harry Hogg and Sam Russell, both 18, met when they were just four years old.

Harry, who is going on to study interior design at the University of Huddersfield, said: “The university texted me this morning which took the pressure off coming in today.

“I am kind of relieved to get my results but was quietly confident I had done it.”

Sam, who is taking an apprenticeship with a pharmaceutical company, said: “I didn’t want to be a student any more so will be earning and learning.

“We’ve been friends since we were four so today is an end of an era really. I am chuffed with my results.”

Overall the school achieved a 99.6 percent pass rate.

Headteacher Dave Lee-Allan said: “Hats off to the students who worked so hard to gain strong grades in the most challenging A-levels for many years.

“Stowmarket has built a reputation for gaining strong results at post 16 and this year is no different.”

Stowupland High School toasted its best results to date with an overall pass rate of 98 percent and 77 percent of students achieving A*-C grades.

Headteacher Karen Grimes said: “There has been a wealth of well-deserved success this year and I am delighted for the students, their parents and staff.

“Of particular significance is sports science - taken for the first time at Stowupland this year - where 100 percent of students gained the top grades of A*-C with 67 percent of students securing A*/A.”

It was also a good day for Thurston Community College with the percentage of A*-C grades at 77.2 percent and three students making it into Oxbridge colleges.

“This is our first cohort to graduate from the Beyton Campus and they have done us very proud.

“We are very proud of them and wish them every success in the future. It has been a privilege having them in our school.”

At Mildenhall College Academy, 98 per cent of students passed, equal to 2014. But of those, 41 per cent had grades A* to B, which was one per cent up on last year, and 72 per cent had A* to C, which was five per cent better than 2014.

Not all students were confident. Max Stucky had a place at University of East Anglia to study English literature and said: “I woke up this morning thinking I hadn’t got in.”

But he was ‘generally pleased’ with A grades in English, general studies and EPQ plus B in history and sociology, which secured his UEA place.

Also off to UEA is Emily Judd, to study history with the hope of becoming a genealogist. She had B grades in history, government and politics and general studies, plus C in maths and A* in EPQ.

A-Level students at Thetford Academy achieved the best exam results their school has ever seen.

Sixth formers at the Inspiration Trust-sponsored school in Croxton Road achieved an overall pass rate of 100 per cent, with 81 per cent of pupils securing grades A*-C, up 16 per cent on last year’s figures.

Executive principal Adrian Ball said he was ‘over the moon’ with this year’s ‘brilliant’ results.

He said: “We’re very proud of all of our students and their achievements. These results are the best ever for the school and are the result of a lot of hard work and effort from teachers and students.

Among the school’s highest achievers was Aliaksandra Baranskaya, who obtained three A*s, and Jamie Mitchell, who got an A*, A and two Bs.

Aliaksandra, who will be studying medicine at the University of Birmingham, said she was ‘in shock’ at having done much better than expected.

“To get into my uni of choice I needed three As and I got three A*s. I was actually preparing myself not to get the three As - I had a back up in my head in case it went wrong. When I saw it, I thought it must have been a misprint.”

She will be rewarding herself by taking a trip to Prague with a friend next month.

“That will be my way of celebrating,” she said.

Jamie, from Thetford, said: “I’m proud of what I got, they’re very good results, and I got the As in subjects I want to specialise in later (maths and physics) so that’s a good sign.”

He has secured himself a place at the University of East Anglia (UEA) studying natural sciences and will be looking for a part time job to keep him busy until then.

His mother, Pat, said: “I’m so proud, happy, relieved and excited for him, and all the students who will be going to uni. It just shows that hard work pays off.”

The number of students gaining three or more A-level passes at the Iceni Academy, in Methwold, has almost doubled in the last year, rising from 33 per cent to 64 per cent.

Students gaining A* to E grades was 99 per cent, an increase of five per cent on last year, but the A* to C results were unavailable at the time of going to press.

Principal Gee Cook said: “I am delighted at the increase in the pass rate that Iceni Academy students have achieved.

“I am particularly pleased that the number of students gaining three or more A-level passes has nearly doubled.

“These results reflect the commitment of all at Iceni Academy and I would like to extend my appreciation to all our students, learning and teaching staff, our Governors and Academy Transformation Trust, for all their hard work.”